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Sunday, February 19, 2012

UN’s General Assembly as Nonbinding on Syria

According to the
New York Times, “In a powerful rebuke to Syria’s government, the United Nations
General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on [February 16, 2012] to approve a
resolution that condemned President Bashar al-Assad’s unbridled crackdown on an
11-month-old uprising and called for his resignation under an Arab League peace
proposal to resolve the conflict.” The reporter immediately undercuts his use
of powerful by observing that the
137-12 vote (with 17 abstentions) is “a nonbinding action with no power of
enforcement at the world body.” The “action” does represent “a significant
humiliation” for Assad. I doubt very much if he felt humiliated. His UN
ambassador “denounced the resolution as a politically motivated scheme to
intervene in Syria by the Western powers and others who ‘would like to settle
accounts with Syria.’” Altogether, the first two or three paragraphs of
Gladstone’s article can be read in terms of logic as “X, not X.” Of course, the
first X gets more attention, so the article gives the impression that the UN
did something powerful when in fact the exercise was one of exposing the
impotence of the world body.

That the
resolutions of the General Assembly are nonbinding even for the UN is perhaps
the epitome of self-emasculation. That the Security Council, on which just a
fraction of the UN’s 193 members sit at any time, could have resolutions
binding on the UN while the GA, on which every member sits, is allowed only
non-binding “actions” suggests a democracy deficit in the UN itself—or at the
very least a serious problem of priorities. The UN would have more legitimacy
were its resolutions that are binding on itself voted on by all of the
members—none of which having a veto and thus able to dominate the world body.
This change would hardly be earth-shattering, as even “binding” resolutions
have trouble finding enough respect to be acted on unless by certain members
having a strategic geo-political interest in “volunteering” on the enforcement
end. It is striking how Assad’s government can kill over 5000 citizens—whom
Gladstone curiously refers to as “an uprising” as if Assad had met rather than
led with weapons—and still be a valid member of the UN. I’m not convinced that
unconditional love should apply to the organization that has a declaration of
human rights, after all.

Therefore,
rather than being “powerful” or “humiliating,” the nonbinding resolution of the
UN’s General Assembly makes transparent just how bad that world body’s inherent
flaws are. This conclusion is utterly hidden in the title that Gladstone went
with: “General Assembly Votes to Condemn Syrian Leader.” A better, more
realistic title would have been: “A lot of UN members mad at Syrian
Government.” Let’s not gild the lily. With global warming and nuclear
proliferation each being a viable threat to the continuance of our species, not
to mention ourselves in particular regions, we can no longer afford to rely on
the UN.

I envision a new
world body with a General Assembly capable of enacting resolutions that are
binding for still-existing members, none of which has a veto, and a Security
Council consisting of rotating members that meets only to handle emergencies
(again, no veto). The GA would be authorized to instruct the Security Council
how to implement enforcement, using members as it will. Of course, countries
would be free to leave the body and face isolation with respect to the benefits
that membership provides. Behind this new organization is the realization that
our species has stepped onto new land in the twenty-first century. This is not
exactly a brave new world of terra firma
(the frozen tundra melting in fact). We as a species now know that we can put
our entire lot at risk.

We are even
beginning to suspect that the historical absolutist interpretation of national
sovereignty is now too dangerous, given what damage we can inflict on each
other and on our species itself. Even for people not buying into this “new era”
thinking, it must be obvious that the UN is an embarrassment and an utter
failure with respect to protecting human rights and even ourselves from
ourselves. Even just on the surface, a resolution that is non-binding even for
the body that does the resolving suggests that the body itself is seriously
flawed and deserves to be replaced. Yet as apparent as this reasoning may be,
politicians are typically creatures of the status quo and won’t likely make a
peep—preferring instead to cite Gladstone’s report of the “powerful rebuke.”
Both the rebuke and Gladstone's characterization evince a case of the blind leading the blind. The beguiled followers blindly put still more clothes on the emperor while
congratulating themselves on such a fine appearance having been achieved. “It
looks good to me,” one blind man says to another. “I quite agree,” the other
replies. All the while, the world sleeps, dreaming that it is wide awake.